Being nice pays off for Ryanair with the budget airline adding one million extra passengers in December

Ryanair’s efforts to be a bit nicer to its customers appear to be paying off, with the budget airline today announcing it had picked up an extra one million passengers, prompting its share price to soar to a record high.

The Irish carrier, famed for its hardnosed approach to customer service, said it flew 6.02million passengers in December – 20 per cent up from 5.02million in December 2013.

Its load factor –which measures the proportion of seats it manages to fill on its flights – jumped from 81 per cent to 88 percent.

Turnaround: Ryanair chief executive Mike O’Leary admitted he had to stop ‘unnecessarily pissing people off’ and launched a charm offensive under the guise of the ‘always getting better programme’ last year

Ryanair shares in Dublin jumped almost 3 per cent to 10.07 euros by midday, and were up 0.33p to 10.13p in London. FTSE 100 rival easyJet gained 37p to 1720p, with airline stocks also helped by a lower oil price.

The Irish carrier is attempting to shed its reputation for poor customer service and excessive extra charges.

This has been cultivated by chief executive Mike O’Leary who has previously branded customers ‘stupid’ and even mooted plans to charge them for using the toilet.

In one of his more notorious rants he branded those who object to paying a penalty for failing to print their own boarding cards as ‘idiots’ who should ‘b***** off’. But the approach backfired as the firm issued two profits warnings in quick succession at the end of 2013 and fell behind rival budget airline easyJet.

O’Leary admitted he had to stop ‘unnecessarily pissing people off’ and launched a charm offensive under the guise of the ‘always getting better programme’ last year.

Ryanair has scrapped some of its more unpopular policies, introduced a more generous carry-on baggage allowance, allocating seating and cutting swingeing extra charges.

It has also bolstered its website and launched a service aimed at business customers.

Jacobs said: ‘With our new routes, increased frequencies, improving customer experience and Business Plus service, Ryanair continues to deliver so much more than the lowest fares in every market we operate in.’